Bournemouth willing to let Murray leave on a free

[Blue Valkyrie]

Some Bournemouth goon has written a blog saying they should hold out for a big price for Murray.

He seems to make the assumption we are absolutely desparate to sign Murray

There are plenty of other options.

 

[Pavilionaire]

We lost out on automatic promotion because we lost four games out of five in the middle of the season, not because we drew with our rivals.

 

[Surf's Up]

We lost out on automatic promotion because we lost four games out of five in the middle of the season, not because we drew with our rivals.

We lost out on automatic promotion because we didnt score 3 more goals than Middlesborough!!

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

We lost out on automatic promotion because we didnt score 3 more goals than Middlesborough!!

We scored 9 more goals than Middlesbrough though.

We missed out on promotion for a number of reasons, no single reason was to blame. It could have been Stephens being sent off by Mike Dean, Hemed missed penalty away to Wolves, the own goal scored by Connor Goldson against Wolves in the home game. We'd have been promoted if we lost 2-0 to Middlesbrough at the Amex instead of 3-0. If was fine lines that cost us this season, not single moments.

 

[Marshy]

£1 million plus add ons and I am happy

 

[Ecosse Exile]

We lost out on automatic promotion because we didnt score 3 more goals than Middlesborough!!

Or because we couldn't hold out at 0-2 in the home game against Boro.

Over the course of 46 games we didn't score enough, we conceded too many, we didn't win enough and we lost or drew too many. In short we were not quite good enough, close but not close enough. No point in blaming one thing or one result.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

We scored 9 more goals than Middlesbrough though.

We missed out on promotion for a number of reasons, no single reason was to blame. It could have been Stephens being sent off by The Complete And Utter Shyster, Hemed missed penalty away to Wolves, the own goal scored by Connor Goldson against Wolves in the home game. We'd have been promoted if we lost 2-0 to Middlesbrough at the Amex instead of 3-0. If was fine lines that cost us this season, not single moments.

Quite right.

Even our BEST performers over the season are GUILTY of individual moments, if you want to blame.

Dunk's red v QPR
Bruno trying to wrestle Austin instead of heading the ball away
Stockdale spilling the ball at Reading
Greer missing from 12 inches v Cardiff
Hughton for choosing to shut us down at half time v Leeds
Kayal giving a goal away at Bolton, when 2-0 up

Pointless exercise

 

[Thunder Bolt]

already mentioned.

 

[Sheebo]

We scored 9 more goals than Middlesbrough though.

We missed out on promotion for a number of reasons, no single reason was to blame. It could have been Stephens being sent off by The Complete And Utter Shyster, Hemed missed penalty away to Wolves, the own goal scored by Connor Goldson against Wolves in the home game. We'd have been promoted if we lost 2-0 to Middlesbrough at the Amex instead of 3-0. If was fine lines that cost us this season, not single moments.

We so wouldn't have been promoted if we'd lost 2-0 to Boro - well not for definate. Goals / results / positions in the league etc change future games massively & their outcome. What I mean is, essentially had we lost 2-0 to Boro that game and all other games for both sides had been the same, Boro would have needed a win in the last game vs us and that would have been a totally different game. I'm prob over thinking it of course, but if only football were that black & white. Same with Burnley fans saying if that Keane goal had been given they'd have beat us 3-2 - I doubt they would...

 

[marshy68]

We lost out on automatic promotion because we didnt score 3 more goals than Middlesborough!!

no if they had only beaten us 2-0 in December at home we would have gone up.... not that it really matters....

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

We so wouldn't have been promoted if we'd lost 2-0 to Boro - well not for definate. Goals / results / positions in the league etc change future games massively & their outcome. What I mean is, essentially had we lost 2-0 to Boro that game and all other games for both sides had been the same, Boro would have needed a win in the last game vs us and that would have been a totally different game. I'm prob over thinking it of course, but if only football were that black & white. Same with Burnley fans saying if that Keane goal had been given they'd have beat us 3-2 - I doubt they would...

Yes I know it would have been a totally different scenario had we only lost 2-0, the same as if any other point I raised didn't happen. If Goldson hadn't of scored the own goal against Wolves we'd have gone into the last game with a point more than 'Boro and they'd have needed the win. There are loads of these fine margins in the season and that was my point, no single event or moment cost us promotion, Mike Dean being the exception to the rule. We missed out because we weren't quite good enough over the course of 46 games to finish at least 2nd.

 

[supaseagull]

We lost out on automatic promotion because we lost four games out of five in the middle of the season, not because we drew with our rivals.

We lost out on automatic promotion because we didnt score 3 more goals than Middlesborough!!

We scored 9 more goals than Middlesbrough though.

We missed out on promotion for a number of reasons, no single reason was to blame. It could have been Stephens being sent off by The Complete And Utter Shyster, Hemed missed penalty away to Wolves, the own goal scored by Connor Goldson against Wolves in the home game. We'd have been promoted if we lost 2-0 to Middlesbrough at the Amex instead of 3-0. If was fine lines that cost us this season, not single moments.

You are all right and wrong. However, the fact was that we lacked a quality goalscorer who at the very least has history of scoring goals in the championship. All of the top 6 have top strikers and that's taking nothing away from Hemed who has scored more goals this year than ever and to whom, I think will score a similar amount next year. However, around him we just weren't prolific enough. Whether you like Baldock or not, his goal return was frankly poor for a striker of his type and even CMS despite his critics had a far better return than Baldock this year and ultimately, I do believe this cost us.

Burnley: Gray (23) & Vokes (16)
Derby: Martin(14) & Ince(12) and then Blackman & Russell who scored 10 goals each
Hernandez at Hull scored 20 and Diame scored 10
Wednesday had Hooper (13) & Forestieri(15)
In fact only Boro had less top scorers but their defence was so mean that they saw out games mostly by 1 or 2 goals.

After Hemed with 17, the next top scorer were Stephens & Zamora with 7 each.

I said in the transfer window that if we were going to go up, we needed another striker like Rhodes or Hooper who will guarantee goals and hindsight is fantastic, but I genuinely believe that sign either of those two, then they would have given us the goals to get us promoted.

Next year, if we keep the nucleus of the squad together and remain injury free then you'll get the likes of Murphy, Kaz, Stephens & Skalak who will get around 5 a piece...then add Knockaert who I think will score at least 10, Hemed 13-18 and so another proven scorer will notch 12-15.

If Murray comes back he'll be good for another 7-10 but he and Hemed are similar types of players so what we need is another instinctive striker who can score from anywhere and spending a lot on someone like McCormack, will - with the other players we have I think as close to guarantee another top 4 finish next year.


I think that Bloom & Hughton know this is all that's missing so if we do sign

So the moral of promotion in the Championship appears to be that unless you have a defence/midfield that is so mean that it won't leak goals at the last minute, then you need 18-20 goal a season striker followed up by another who'll score another 10-15 to get promotion.

All just my opinion!

 

[cooliobhafc]

You are all right and wrong. However, the fact was that we lacked a quality goalscorer who at the very least has history of scoring goals in the championship. All of the top 6 have top strikers and that's taking nothing away from Hemed who has scored more goals this year than ever and to whom, I think will score a similar amount next year. However, around him we just weren't prolific enough. Whether you like Baldock or not, his goal return was frankly poor for a striker of his type and even CMS despite his critics had a far better return than Baldock this year and ultimately, I do believe this cost us.

Burnley: Gray (23) & Vokes (16)
Derby: Martin(14) & Ince(12) and then Blackman & Russell who scored 10 goals each
Hernandez at Hull scored 20 and Diame scored 10
Wednesday had Hooper (13) & Forestieri(15)
In fact only Boro had less top scorers but their defence was so mean that they saw out games mostly by 1 or 2 goals.

After Hemed with 17, the next top scorer were Stephens & Zamora with 7 each.

I said in the transfer window that if we were going to go up, we needed another striker like Rhodes or Hooper who will guarantee goals and hindsight is fantastic, but I genuinely believe that sign either of those two, then they would have given us the goals to get us promoted.

Next year, if we keep the nucleus of the squad together and remain injury free then you'll get the likes of Murphy, Kaz, Stephens & Skalak who will get around 5 a piece...then add Knockaert who I think will score at least 10, Hemed 13-18 and so another proven scorer will notch 12-15.

If Murray comes back he'll be good for another 7-10 but he and Hemed are similar types of players so what we need is another instinctive striker who can score from anywhere and spending a lot on someone like McCormack, will - with the other players we have I think as close to guarantee another top 4 finish next year.


I think that Bloom & Hughton know this is all that's missing so if we do sign

So the moral of promotion in the Championship appears to be that unless you have a defence/midfield that is so mean that it won't leak goals at the last minute, then you need 18-20 goal a season striker followed up by another who'll score another 10-15 to get promotion.

All just my opinion!

Sorry but I don't agree, we were one of if not the top scorers in the league last year, we missed out on goal difference but if we had defended better, we wouldnt be having this argument. If we had held the lead when in the league like QPR, we wouldnt be having this discussion.

Our defence cost us as much as anything last year and had we been stronger in defence, we wouldnt be needing to have this conversation

This is of course MHO.

 

[chaileyjem]

I said in the transfer window that if we were going to go up, we needed another striker like Rhodes or Hooper who will guarantee goals and hindsight is fantastic, but I genuinely believe that sign either of those two, then they would have given us the goals to get us promoted.

Yes. but how much better could it have actually been after the January window even if we'd signed , lets say, Rhodes. You can only put 11 players on the pitch, we only lost twice between Jan + end of season, scored more than anyone else, hatfuls in fact, and Hemed scored more than Rhodes who was in an equally fine Boro side. And signing Rhodes wouldn't have got back those 12 points we dropped out of 15 over Christmas. If anything he might have taken time to adjust and scored fewer. Would Rhodes have stopped any goals going in the other end ? or stopped players getting sent off ? or Dale Stephens raising his leg too high ?

 

[Bozza]

Yes. but how much better could it have actually been after the January window even if we'd signed , lets say, Rhodes. You can only put 11 players on the pitch, we only lost twice between Jan + end of season, scored more than anyone else, hatfuls in fact, and Hemed scored more than Rhodes who was in an equally fine Boro side. And signing Rhodes wouldn't have got back those 12 points we dropped out of 15 over Christmas. If anything he might have taken time to adjust and scored fewer. Would Rhodes have stopped any goals going in the other end ? or stopped players getting sent off ? or Dale Stephens raising his leg too high ?

I'm largely onside with this view, however we didn't have a goalscorer on the pitch in the play-off semi second leg. I'd like to think we'd have scored more than one in that opening period if we had someone up front who knew how to put the ball away.

 

[Icy Gull]

Yes. but how much better could it have actually been after the January window even if we'd signed , lets say, Rhodes. You can only put 11 players on the pitch, we only lost twice between Jan + end of season, scored more than anyone else, hatfuls in fact, and Hemed scored more than Rhodes who was in an equally fine Boro side. And signing Rhodes wouldn't have got back those 12 points we dropped out of 15 over Christmas. If anything he might have taken time to adjust and scored fewer. Would Rhodes have stopped any goals going in the other end ? or stopped players getting sent off ? or Dale Stephens raising his leg too high ?

Another reason we didn't go up was the freakishly phenomenal form in the run in of the top three, The other two had a start on us that we couldn't quite reel in.

 

[Marshy]

Sorry but I don't agree, we were one of if not the top scorers in the league last year, we missed out on goal difference but if we had defended better, we wouldnt be having this argument. If we had held the lead when in the league like QPR, we wouldnt be having this discussion.

Our defence cost us as much as anything last year and had we been stronger in defence, we wouldnt be needing to have this conversation

This is of course MHO.

We may have been the top scorers in the league, that does not equate to our strikers were good enough though... not in my book anyway

I still maintain if we had decent strikers we would have won half a dozen more games early in the season when we were drawing games.
We were totally bossing games and either winning by a single goal or drawing games.
After 20 odd games unbeaten we should have been 8 or 9 points clear, but we were not, in fact were we even top ?
The weak link in the side is the forwards. I dont need stats to tell me that.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

We may have been the top scorers in the league, that does not equate to our strikers were good enough though... not in my book anyway

I still maintain if we had decent strikers we would have won half a dozen more games early in the season when we were drawing games.
We were totally bossing games and either winning by a single goal or drawing games.
After 20 odd games unbeaten we should have been 8 or 9 points clear, but we were not, in fact were we even top ?
The weak link in the side is the forwards. I dont need stats to tell me that.

I think you're being incredibly harsh on our strikers. We conceded 42 goals which affected our GD.
We had drawn 6 games by the end of October, winning the rest.

28/11/15 Yes, we were top by two points.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/34887113

 

[BensGrandad]

Our biggest problem and it was known to every manager and some like Dyche played on it, was our poor defense of set pieces. Hence too many goals conceeded from crosses and corner and free kicks.

 

[albionite]

Our biggest problem and it was known to every manager and some like Dyche played on it, was our poor defense of set pieces. Hence too many goals conceeded from crosses and corner and free kicks.

Talking bollocks again bg. Burnleys game plan against everyone was their set pieces.